4. Todiscourage the development of auto-oriented uses in the commercial areas and encourage uses which promote walking and mass transit; and 5. Toprovide support for alternative forms of urban travel, such as bicycling and walking, by constructing bicycle/pedestrian paths which link residential areas to employment centers and commercial areas. The economics of natural and human resources in this country relate integrallyto a major sector of transportation, theautomobile industry. This dominatingforce in our economy creates employment for one in every five Americans, yet it drains not only the planet's fossil fuels but also 60 percent of our country's synthetic rubber, 50 percent ofits malleable iron, 33 percent of its zinc, 25 percent of its steel, and 17 percent of its aluminum. Finally, transportation is a communications issue; often what is carried is nearly invisible, at the very least intangible. We move paper, and we move people about in order to move paper. Could advancing electronic technologies handle the job? An article in Fortune (6/ 18/79) describes, for example, the U.S. Postal Service mail system as "a ridiculous arrangement that employs internal combustion engines and human backs to lug around information, an essentially weightless commodity." Transportation system decisions may involve complex solutions such as an urban mass transit system, for which long term consequences are hard to gauge, or more simple alternatives. The U.S. Department of Energy's publication, The Energy Consumer{9180) has estimated that "if only half of the 52 million Americans who now drive to work alone would double up, the country would save 14.7 million gallons of gasoline each day." Davis, California, has demonstrated that bicycles can, under some conditions, be a viable option for local transportation. The city's bike path system and education program have resulted in more bikes than cars being driven in the city. By using bikes for one-fourth of all trips within the city, Davis residents are saving roughly 64,000 gallons of gasoline annually. The key to transportation planning, then, is to look at both larger- and smaller-scale strategies and to balance local and regional priorities with personal ones. —Steve Johnson Communication Since the early 1960s the dominant trend in the Uited States labor force has been the growth of information-related occupations. By the mid-1970s almost half the country's labor force worked in information-related occupations, which accounted for nearly half the gross national product. Sociologist Daniel Bell has predicted that over 90 percent of the labor force will be providing services by the year 2000, with only 10 percent of the labor force in the United States producing hard goods. We are moving from an industrial- based economy to an information-based economy. The importance of this fundamental shift is aptly stated by information specialist Anthony Oettinger: Information is a resource just as special Mother's Day Trolley, 1936 55 Oregon Historical Society
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